Thank you KLCameron. And for those abusive and rude passengers/spoiled, cocooned Americans (yes, you all know who you are commentators), you should be banned from all airports and get a discount w/ Greyhound (travelling w/ low income fellow Americans and else, drug dealers, and homeless people will bring you back to reality and show how good you have it in this country!)So, stop complaining, undress and get on the plane, or the bus.

If I owned a coffee shop, TSA agents (along with policemen and firemen and maybe others) would get a discount.

I flew into Newark, NJ on September 10th, 2001 and was scheduled to return home on 9/11. I ended up driving home (1600 miles) later that week. I have flown extensively (including international). As far as I am concerned, TSA can do ANYTHING they want to help ensure security. Not once, have I ever felt violated by a TSA agent. In fact, I usually feel sorry for them because of the abuse they get from passengers (and the press). I make it a point to thank them EVERY time I go through their screening. And, in case, you think I've just been lucky and go straight through, I normally wear a back brace when I travel, so I am ALWAYS asked to step aside and go through "special" screening.

TSA agents are just doing their jobs. So were guards at concentration camps. I recognize that there is a BIG difference between the two. TSA agents are way down on the not-so-egregious end of the continuum. Concentration camp guards were all the way up, as high as one can go, on the unspeakably mindblowingly horrendous end of the continuum. But it's a continuum, and they're both on it.

Actually, the problem is a management problem. TSA agents in Orlando, for instance, are couteous and try to be helpful, but those at certain other airports can be downright rude and obnoxious. The local management's behaviour expectations clearly affects the agents themselves. As far as efficacy, I'm forced to agree with the "theatre" comment - again why is TSA management not on top of this?

I am constantly amazed at the severely flawed critical thinking of my fellow USA Americans. Did the history books never teach you that the Nazis broke no laws. The Gestapo, SS, Brown shirts were all acting within the perimeters of the legal system.They used the legal system to justify their actions. Sound familiar?

- no one is denying that the TSA are merely doing the job given to them by others, and that that job needs to be done. The problem (which, amazingly, none of the 20 comments below, and the article itself, captured) is *how* they're doing it. Surely the DHS and DOT don't require the TSA to discharge their duties with sheer contempt for the traveller, with wanton disregard for common courtesy, and with the most deplorable attitude which they're adopting. That is the real problem. However apocryphal the coffee shop 'story' might be, its underlying theme is the TSA general unpleasantness, not their purpose. They could choose to do their jobs much differently;

- and, regarding Jim who brought weed from A'dam: it's telling that he fails to understand that the TSA is a security agency, not the US Customs -- a different organisation whose controls he evaded. The TSA doesn't care about weed; weed won't bring down planes. Customs is something that happens on arriving, not on departing, and their controls are entirely different. Their dogs could well have found the weed and then Jim would be lingering in prison despite the quantities being low. That whole post was entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand.

Unfortunately the TSA has exported its obnoxious policies to other countries, and the security theatre is dire at London, Amsterdam, Vienna etc. I've given up travelling by air and suggest others do the same. The problem starts at the top, not with the individual agents, and until politicians are made to accept responsibility for what is being done, nothing will change. Maybe Government Ministers should get a full body search before being served airport coffee. Oh, I forgot: they can use the VIP lounge.

Clearly the TSA staff are doing their jobs and require respect. However, they must understand that as Governemnt employees they are paid by the very people that they are there to protect. They display the problem that exists in many places of the world where Governement officials have forgotten that they are in public service. Therefore they view passangers as either a)incoveniently getting in the way of their chats with colleagues or b)objects over which they can exert total power and abuse. This style of approach comes from the top; it is high time our polictical leaders stopped taking their electorates for granted and got back to the business of government and administration rather than playing politics for their personal gain.

True or not, it is a great idea. I'd do the same if I had a business close to any US airport. Other businesses should adopt the idea. As a patron I'd hate to have TSA people close to me in a cafe. The "obeying orders" argument is a fallacy: one can just look for another job. If they accept to work for TSA they implicitly accept its ways.

I do not think it is immoral at all. If you find that immoral than you will find this guys banning of all government employees from his business even worse http://www.graftongulch.com/, but, it is his business and in the end he has the right to prevent whoever he wants from entering. What happened to property rights? Are they immoral as well? Wrong? Misguided?

Konker got closest to the truth. The TSA was a creation of Congress. Our complaints should be directed at members of Congress and our local city, state and county governments who regulate our airports. While they do not administer TSA they are closer to the ear of Congress than we are. We continue to sit on our hands while the Patriot Act is renewed and this thing called "democracy" gets further and further away from us. Remember the Bastille!

What I think is, that it is a good idea for a reporter to verify information before running with a story. Obviously that wasn't done by Elliott or by any of the so-called news outlets that picked up his ill-sourced nonsense.

Last week i flew out of jacksonville fl. Had to remove my belt as part of screening (noere required at any other airport) which i dutifully did...and "passed" screening with my cell phone inadvertently left in my pocket.

so , what' the rule on shoes--in a box? on the belt conveyor? on one's feet? in the last year I've 'confronted" each as a requirment dependong on the airline.

this morning flying out of O'Hare, I emptied my pockets/removed my belt for the new body screening device. Why did I get a pat down afterwards?

how about a container of tunafish salad? been bringing one from my favorite deli back for years...until last Decmeber when its presence in my bag elicited 'special screening' and, save for the discretion of the TSA rep in question, would have been tossed (not salad).

why does a container of jam pass on one occasion and not another, even when i offer to open and eat it?

i find the "courtesy" of TSA agents to be entirely false. If one does not behave in an obsequious manner, the iron fist comes out.

I am sorry but I see nothing but atrbitrary and capricious and unpredictable behavior in anything TSA does....and NO evidence that the TSA screening behavior does ANYTHING to make us safer.

Who cares whether what the TSA agents do might be "illegal" or "immoral". Here's what bugs Americans, and therefore, here's what this story really proves: Rightly or wrongly (it doesn't matter) Americans hate the general atmosphere they now find at airports; they resent it, and the TSA agents are easy to blame. Some agents indeed are obnoxious; many are very pleasant and professional. But all of them are the face of the new atmosphere of paranoia. This is especially true of people who are old enough to remember the "good old days" -- when security was barely a thought on anyone's mind and there was a certain ambience at the airport, and I don't mean that it was glamorous in any way -- because it hasn't been glamorous since the 60s. But there was a modicum of respect for passengers. The only stress was caused by the possibility you might miss your plane, or simply that the crowds were in your way. But you got to go your own way, for the most part. You didn't have to follow drills and routines dictated by a government official. Now you do. Sometimes it can turn into a horror show or a theater of the absurd, as everyone knows. Nowadays passengers are bombarded with loud, utilitarian announcements delivered in a grating, blunt manner: This is what you can and cannot bring aboard an airplane, or Orwellian messages about the current "threat level" (which has not changed for a decade); TSA agents shout out imperatives like, "you MUST take your shoes off and lay them flat on the belt" or "take ALL liquids out of your bag and put them in your bin" as if they were operating a boot camp. What's worse is, these seemingly pedantic rules change minute by minute, by design, I take it... in order to "throw off" the terrorists. It all creates an environment designed to keep everyone wary, on their toes, suspicious of others. Everyone is treated like a potential terrorist... even little old ladies and children. That is absurd. Anyone with common sense can see it. Maybe it's necessary, but that doesn't make it any less absurd. To sum it up, being at the airport these days totally sucks. Before 9/11, it may not have been a bed of roses but it wasn't the torture it is today. You can walk into an airport in a pleasant mood, and 20 minutes later (or less) find yourself in just the opposite situation. That's what the airport environment does to people now... and I think that's what this (true or false) story's popularity shows. Americans resent that the airport has become the inter-city bus stations of yore -- no, even worse.

The NPR program, "Wait, wait, don't tell me ..." noted that under a revised policy, the TSA agents would be served, but their drinks would be just 3 ounces and provided in plastic bags.

The truth is, I understand that their job is to make flying safer and most of them are trying to do their jobs well. On that basis, I accept the intrusive inspections without whingeing or trying to make their jobs even more difficult or unpleasant.

Unfortunately, much of what they do is "security theater" - if a person can use a nail clipper to hijack a plane, he can do it without a nail clipper. And they are always one step behind - shoe inspections and liquid limits only came about after someone tried to use those methods to conceal explosives. If anyone ever tries to use explosive suppositories, I will never fly again.

Good comments from everyone. I personally cannot fly because of the new TSA screening. First, I have had some near scares with skin cancer and will not submit myself to more radiation. Second, the scans they do are totally visible on a monitor next to the scan booth. That's pornography in my book. Third, as a survivor of childhood sexual trauma, I won't allow myself to be groped.

Does this limit my life? Of course! I've had to restructure my business because of it. And I have written to the airlines that I fly to tell them that I love their service but hate the new screening so much that I cannot fly their airlines any more. I will drive to do my business, but not fly.

It's all theatre, as some of you mentioned, and it's all meant to help Michael Chertoff's bottom line and to get us softened up for more fascistic impositions.